When a budding filmmaker gets an invitation to a mysterious meeting, she's sure that she's about to enter a world of secrets and spies. It's actually just a high-tech adventure with a bunch of strangers. Not that she's complaining.

A lonely young man takes in Shining Armor and Cadance after he finds them on their doorstep, stranded from their own world. After becoming friends, the two ponies help the man open up to a woman he's attracted to.

After a freak accident whisks Princess Cadance and Shining Armor away from their home, they end up on Earth, and are quickly taken in by two teenagers. There is only one minor nitpick. Cadence is pregnant.

I sincerely doubt Cinch /Chisel will grant the Royal Pair the privilege of making a false move, specially with Sombra gone. She will likely spend the rest of her life hiding from her past like so many real life dictatorial-state criminals.

Now I'm starting to wonder about the other characters we've seen in the movies who don't seem to have counterparts on the show--those two guys who can't manage to build a birdhouse in "Friendship Games," for instance. How do they fit into the actual Pony world?

Seeing as Cinch in the movie was dumb enough to unleash a completely unknown energy for the sole purpose of having an edge in 'Find the Flags', I can believe her pony counterpart would make a mistake like referring to Sombra as His Majesty.

And of course, ponies are always more competent than their human versions.

My impression of Cinch from the movie was that she was more than a little arrogant and more than a little inclined toward belittling those she sees as beneath her. And since at the beginning of the piece, as far as she knows, there's no evidence connecting her to Sombra except as an accountant who worked in his administration, I could easily see her being passive aggressive toward the upstarts who have dared to take his place...

6537405"We don't exactly have proof that Principal Sombra was the mastermind behind the crystal meth trade, nor that he conscripted his students to act as drug couriers. But, let me tell you, when the bastard goes, there will be cops from five jurisdictions at his funeral to make sure he won't be coming back."

6541740The way I read it is: 1) Twilight tells Shining Armor that Abacus Cinch was a Principal in the human world, and that even though she didn't commit any crimes, she was a jerk.2) Shining Armor investigates to see if the Crystal Empire has any Abacus Cinches, maybe for personal curiosity, maybe for some other reason.3) He and his wife discover Cinch has been an accountant for many years at the palace, but there is no evidence of her doing anything wrong.4) Shining Armor wants to arrest her on the ground that because her double is the principal of a school in a different universe, this Cinch must be the evil 2nd in command. Cadance however, makes him agree not to arrest her and instead just meet her.

Investigating someone on the basis of their mirror universe double seems pretty creepy to me. Keep in mind I'm not talking about the investigating Shining Armor is doing at the end of the story by having her tailed with a plainclothes guard, he saw her flinch at the mention of the Chisel, that makes sense to me. But the earlier investigation into her was creepy, since it was solely based on the actions of her double.

I think it really says something about Cadance that even though she has all but a confession a to who Cinch is, she still is willing to let bygones be bygones, still willing to forgive the past, just so long as Cinch chooses it. Also nice to see that, despite that willingness to forgive, she's not a fool.

Well, that was a great improvement over the write-off entry, the extra words made this really shine. Also, while it was a more peaceful change in administration, I got the same vibes as with the ex-stasi members of the DDR.

6549712They are somewhat needed if you want to avoid lynching and interrupt the chain of death and revenge that follows less ordered power changes. It is also something incredibly hard to do. I sincerely have no idea if I would be strong enough to to forgive, having never been in a situation where such a thing is required.

Like: The royal couple actually doing things beyond acting useless and failing to use a condom properly. Truth and reconciliation meetings. Having the ruthlessness, or at lest practicality, to agree to the third guard.

Dislike: Giving Cynch far too much credit. She's mean and ruthless and not above cheating. But going from that to war criminal is a SoD breaking leap for me.

Okay, Cinch is a selfish, self-deceiving and antisocial piece of work, but the Pony equivalent of Heinrich Himmler? That's pretty hardcore!

Worse, she's a Sombra loyalist; I'm sure we all caught her slip when she made it clear that Cadance was a usurper on her late master's throne. So, yeah, she's ultimately a danger to the Empire. A swift and unfortunate 'accident'... maybe 'died whilst the terrorist device she was constructing prematurely exploded' or 'killed whilst resisting arrest with lethal force'... may be sadly necessary.

6625086I honestly think she'd given so little character in that tvmovie that it's impossible to judge how she'd act in any given situation. However, since you asked, then statistically...

If she lived in the Soviet Union in the 1940s, then on balance she'd be too busy either fighting THE FUCKING NAZIS you retard, and/or trying to survive in the aftermath. Or possibly dead, since USSR civilian and military casualties were obscenely high. There is a high chance she's a widow, because more than half of women were in the USSR at the time. She has probably lost more friends in the past few years than she has fingers. There's a good chance she's a rape victim. Because Eastern Front in WWII really was that horrible. Now are there any other ridiculously poorly thought out question's you'd like to ask?

if Cinch is Chisel she might appreciate having guards following her if some less.. forgiving Crystal ponies discover her secret the guards might be the only thing to keep her safe. I think Cadance and Shining Armor know that too, the guards as as much there to stop Cinch if she's a traitor as they are to protect her if she has changed and vengeance seekers target her.

As I was planning to do. Like I said, Cinch/Chisel is just a plot device, what Alfred Hitchcock used to call "a magguffin." All I wanted to do was a little character study of how Shining Armor and Cadance would react differently to a national security threat but still reach a consensus. If anyone wants to go the full "John LeCarre" route with all this, feel free.

Some may feel this story is incomplete, but I rather like the small hints that Cinch might be someone more villainous, but with everyone treading lightly around the subject. I do wish there was a little more, maybe to drive home a little extra tension, but I still enjoyed it nonetheless.

Very glad I finally read the Fimfiction version of this story. I incorporated it into my headcanon during the Writeoff. Seeing it as it is here is a delight. Thank you for an excellent portrayal of pony Cinch.

In a way this is frustrating, in that there's so obviously far more going on here than can possibly be fitted into so few words. That's not actually a complaint, though: I found this very readable indeed, and the occasional (and uncomfortable) echoes of human society added another layer. Despite your explanation elsewhere, I still found "Armor" a little distracting, but this was still great.